Adolf Hitler’s war-time bunker, a secret MI5 office, underground tunnels and a toilet were just some of the suggestions by commuters asked to guess what lurks behind a mystery door in the city centre.

Passers-by were asked to speculate on what the concrete-encased door jutting out of the side of High Street, near Castle Park, concealed.

Dan Martin, from North Somerset, and Pierre Borom, from France, suggested it might be a disused toilet while Jo van Kampen said it could be an underground office used by MI5 agents to secretly plan covert operations.

But as it turns out, this unassuming, slightly damaged and graffiti-covered wooden door is actually the entrance to something far more intriguing – medieval cellars.

This is the entrance to two medieval cellars hidden beneath High Street

Built at some point during the 1300s or 1400s, the two cellars, which can now be found beneath High Street, were used to store wine and other imports brought to Bristol via the River Avon.

Peter Fleming, who is a professor of history at the University of the West of England, said one of the cellars would have been used to keep barrels, while the other would have served as a showroom.

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“And if you walk down Corn Street today, I think you’ll find lots of these medieval cellars are being used as little wine bars which have been converted and renovated over the years.”

In 2007, excavation work on the area – which is situated to the west of Castle Park, in front of the former Norwich Union building – revealed “extensive cellaring” had taken place across the site until as recently as the 1930s.

This is what it looks like inside one of the two cellars, which can be accessed via the doorway (Image: Bristol City Council)

The team from Bristol and Region Archaeological Services found a number of cellars which were built during the 18th century, as well as evidence of “a few wall foundations, deposits and pits” dating from the medieval period.

Sadly, many of these hidden cellars were found to have been damaged during World War Two, as they stand in one of the areas worst hit by the Luftwaffe's Blitz on Bristol but Professor Fleming suggested they might have been accessible by alternative entrances.

“We know from other primary sources that there was a contract by a woman called Alice Chestre who wanted a carpenter to build her a house in High Street in 1472,” he added.